


Hymns with the Devil in Confessional

by InsaneSociopath



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Gen, Medical Jargon, Parent Pike, Seriously ill Jim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 17:51:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12989334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneSociopath/pseuds/InsaneSociopath
Summary: Jim mutters that he's fine.Jim is not fine.Not at all.For the anon Prompt: Academy adoption fic because that's my jam: Jim hides an illness from Pike, until it becomes too late





	Hymns with the Devil in Confessional

**Author's Note:**

> Title picked at random. Fic written at random.  
>  **WARNING FOR GRAPHIC ILLNESS DESCRIPTIONS.**
> 
>  
> 
> Medical Jargon provided by Shroom-Boi and Gracieminabox, and our humble overlord, Wikipedia.

“Are you alright kid?”

Captain Pike is looking at him concerned from behind his desk, his hands braced on the arms of his chair as though ready to push himself to his feet in an instant.

Jim nods hurriedly, forcing himself to not cough again. It makes tears sting at the corner of his eyes, but he manages to keep his breathing steady and normal.

“Are you sure son? You look a bit pale.”

“I’m fine sir,” he manages, thanking his lucky stars that his voice doesn’t sound too scratchy. “I just got a bit of dust in my throat; it’s gone now.”

Pike squints at him for a second, but relaxes when Jim forces himself to smile and shrug slightly.

“Well if you’re sure…” the gruff captain shrugs back. 

“Yeah yeah, I’m fine,” Jim waves away. “Don’t be such a worrywart,” he adds, hoping the little bit of cheek would distract him from the moisture still building along his eyelashes.

“Watch your tone young man,” Pike bites back predictably. “I’m allowed to be concerned for you given you so often fail to do it for yourself.”

Jim shrugs again with a slight smirk before pushing himself out of his own chair and snagging the strap of his Academy satchel. He grips the top of the chair with his free hand to stop himself wobbling as the edge of his vision suddenly greys out.

“You’d be worried if I suddenly stopped sassing you sir,” Jim grins through the haze in his vision, stepping carefully towards the door.

“No, I’d be very relieved,” Pike replies wryly. “And where do you think you’re going? I haven’t dismissed you yet.”

“Intermediate Ethics with Commander Fraydon. Which starts in… five and half minutes. So unless you want to get another disciplinary notice for lateness about me…?”

“Fine, you’re dismissed you rascal,” Pike scowls. “And don’t forget you promised my other half you’d come round for dinner on Sunday! Five o’clock on the dot or I’ll set Tango on you!”

Jim offers a lazy salute in acknowledgment as he steps through the door, thumbing it shut behind him. 

As soon as he’s alone in the corridor, he takes a deep breath and staggers to lean on the wall, leaning over and shoving his knuckles into his aching eye sockets.

* * *

He makes it to Ethics with less than ten seconds to spare, sinking into a chair at the very end of the empty front row rather than trying to brave the stairs up to his usual seat.

Within five minutes, the constantly changing light levels from the professor’s presentation have his head pounding so hard that he gives up trying to concentrate, shuts his eyes and props his head on his fist.

Another ten minutes later and he’s fast asleep.

* * *

He wakes to his Padd beeping furiously under his hand.

He stirs slowly, groaning as his neck protests; its stiffened up completely and does not want to move at all. Carefully, he cracks his eyes open, flinching and jarring his neck again when the light immediately stabs into his skull. He shuts them again hurriedly.

His throat feels like its on fire.

Eventually, he pats around the small desk attached to the arm of his seat and manages to silence the blaring, sighing in relief as the absence of sound also means the needle stabbing his brain through his ears also cuts out. 

“Fuck my life,” he groans to himself quietly, trying to summon the willpower to try opening his eyes again.

His Padd vibrates under his hand again.

“Alright, alright,” he mumbles, his voice cracking and burning. Slowly, he opens his right eye a fraction and glares down at the device through the watery haze clouding his vision.

Groaning as his arm muscles spasm again, he taps the screen on and squints down at the notifications blinking back up at him. A message from Bones, one from his hand-to-hand instructor, and over a dozen from Pike. Five missed comm calls from the latter too, as well as a generic system notification for unauthorised absence.

He taps on the last of the list once the coughing fit that shudders through his body has subsided, not understanding why he’s been marked absent when he’s in Ethics class _right now_ dammit.

_[Standard alert of unauthorised absence for Cadet Kirk, J.T. Earth-Date: Wednesday 17th February 2257. Class: advanced self-defence. Instructor: Lieutenant Ga’Tor. You are therefore required to attend disciplinary; the appropriate officer will contact you shortly with details. If you have received this notification in error, or have viable evidence allowing for authorisation, please contact Academy administration urgently.]_

Jim stares at the message with slowly building shock, his other eye sliding open as he rereads it again.

Then he finally looks up at the lecture theatre, ignoring the dull ache the motion sends though his limbs.

The lights are low -not off but dimmed to stand-by mode. The presentation board and the 3D projector desk are dark and silent, the audio enhancing equipment also silent. His classmates and professor Fraydon, absent.

He’s the only one in the entire hall. 

He’s been left to sleep alone.

Groaning more loudly, he slowly turns back to his padd, closing the admin message and pulling up the alert from Bones.

_[Got emergency surgery. Will be late night. Love you, please eat!!!]_

Not unusual for the grouchy doctor he’s lucky enough to call his partner. Basically, Bones is just letting him know that he would have to sleep in his own dorm room tonight, and that if he wanted to go out for a quick drink, he’d have to go out alone or find someone else to accompany him. 

The messages from Pike however, are not quite so simple or pleasant.

 _[Goddammit Kirk, why are you not in class?]_ reads the first one, the time stamp from nearly three hours ago.

_[I’m serious Kirk. You can’t keep playing hooky. I will escalate the disciplinary up to a flag officer if you don’t start following the rules.]_

A couple of _Go to class Kirk_ messages follow. And then:

_[For every 5 minutes you continue to ignore me and avoid going to A-SD, I will add another day to the academic suspension I’m going to slap you with.]_

_[Answer my Comm calls Kirk]._

A gap of 10 minutes.

_[Okay where are you? You’re not in your dorm, not in the library, and none of your friends have seen you since before Ethics. If you’ve gone off campus to get drunk, I will lose my shit son.]_

_[Phil has just informed me you’re not in Medical or at the Clinic either. Please answer my comms, I’m starting to get concerned.]_

_[This is why I told you to reactivate the tracker in your Padd.]_

_[If you were lying to me earlier about your coughing fit and you’re passed out in a ditch or something, I will personally oversee Phil and Leonard as they hypo you into oblivion and trap you in Medical permanently.]_

Another gap, another couple of missed calls.

_[Jim please. If someone has hurt you or said something they shouldn’t have, then come to me and tell me so I can beat them senseless for you. I just want to know you’re okay.]_

_[On the other hand if you are just blowing off class because you were bored, I will smack you six ways to Sunday and force you to stay at my house for a week until you learn to behave.]_

_[It’s been nearly three hours. I am going to call you one last time, and if you don’t answer, I am going to get security to track you down.]_

There’s one last missed comm -undoubtedly the one that finally woke him up- and then nothing since. 

Closing his eyes and shoving back the sudden swell of nausea, he blindly fumbles at the screen until he hears the distinctive pip that indicates the voice to text function has been activated.

“Text comm to Captain Pike,” he rasps, dropping his head onto the desk next to the device and breathing shallow and slow through his nose. “I am fine. Fell asleep, Padd was on mute. See you Sunday. Kirk. Computer send.”

His Padd blips once again, and he shoves it away slightly.

“Come on Jim, stand up,” he mutters to himself. “Raise your head, grab your bag and leave.”

His Padd starts ringing again.

“Computer, cut the call,” he hacks through a cough, having to repeat himself when he’s not clear enough to be understandable the first time. 

“Ohh shut up,” he moans when it immediately starts blaring at him again. His head rolls backwards onto the chair back and he slams his hands over his eyes as the whole room spins and sparks dance through the sudden blankness.

The Padd does not shut up. 

He shoves it to the floor with one wild flail of his hand, holding back a sob when it continues to beep at him shrilly from under his feet. Wrapping his pounding head back in his arms, he contemplates kicking the damn thing as well, before deciding to just get up, walk off, and leave it.

Slowly, he forces his trembling legs to support him, and pivots round to brace himself on the row of seats. Shuffling sideways one step at a time, he drags himself along the wall to the lecture theatre doors, trying not to throw up the entire way.

His leg spasms just as he’s reaching sideways for the door panel, and suddenly he finds himself on the floor, tears streaming down his face and his entire left side of his body on fire. He gags once, twice, three times and curls up on himself, hands grasping at the collar of his cadet jacket. 

For a second, his heart feels like it stops beating in his chest.

He gasps.

 _Get up, get up, get up!_ He screams silently to himself, his arms trembling as he tries to push himself upright.

His vision blacks again, and he pitches backwards, landing slouched against the door with a dull, painful thud. 

He coughs and coughs and coughs, his hands clenching and unclenching uncontrollably.

Maybe he shouldn’t have blocked that call.

* * *

Against literally all odds, he somehow he makes it unseen to the empty bathroom down the hall by crawling on all fours. Dragging himself along the floor at some points.

Everything _hurts._

The door swings shut behind him as he scrabbles towards one of the shower cubicles, his breathing coming more and ragged. Sweat pours down his face, chest and back, and he wants nothing more than to strip all his too-constricting clothes off, curl up and pass out right now.

Goddamn, he really wants his Bones right now.

So _very_ badly. 

A full body shiver wracks through him again, and his back arches in protest. He screams through his teeth and tastes blood.

“Please please please,” he quietly sobs, praying to anyone that might happen to be listening that someone, _anyone,_ finds him soon.

He hangs over the edge of the shower basin, head and shoulders resting on the cool ceramic, panting with his eyes squeezed shut. His leg twitches again, and a fresh wave of fire sears up his nerves, yet another moan strangling in his throat.

His chest and stomach constrict and he’s shuddering helplessly through the agony as bile pools in his mouth, hot, bitter and _awful._ He spits it out, but there’s more.

And it’s _red._

It’s vile and swirled with crimson blood red.

The left side of his chest screams in anguish and the blood and bile keeps coming.

His lungs are going to drown in his own body fluids.

He’s going to die.

He’s sure he’s going to die.

Fuck, he really should have answered Pike’s call.

He really doesn’t want to _die._

* * *

* * *

_“JIM!”_

He can’t move.

He might be convulsing.

_“Oh god its okay Jimmy, it’s okay son. I’m here, I’m here.”_

Everything hurts.

He just wants it to stop.

Please, just make it stop.

_“I need an emergency beam to medical NOW!”_

He just wants it to stop.

* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_is this-?_  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_Is this the end?_

 _Is this_ his _end?_

* * *

* * *

There are… voices?

He sleeps again.

* * *

“…on top of all that, he’s… Lung collapse because of the… total renal failure, his kidneys completely packed up. We’ve operated and replaced, but his body is still swimming with toxins. If we don’t clean his blood soon Chris, he’s not going to make it. You need to prepare for the possibility that….”

“….Please. Please, whatever it takes,” a hoarse voice thick with tears replies. “You should have seen him Phil, I’ve never seen anything like it. He was…”

“...Purified ricin powder cut with Risan sugar cane. How he held on until you found him baby, I’ll never-”

* * *

He opens his eyes, and the light doesn’t hurt.

He blinks.

The ceiling is pure white.

The pain is gone.

“You are one stubborn son of a gun,” comes wryly from his left.

“Bones,” he rasps relieved, tilting his head towards the sound of his best friend and lover's voice.

“Little know fact,” the doctor drawls smoothly, “A dose of purified ricin powder the size of a few grains of table salt can kill an adult human. Only 1 milligram per kilogram of body weight is needed for it to be fatal. Cut it with Risan sugar and there’s a delayed reaction; you get a few hours feeling fine, and then boom. Misery.”

“Ricin?”

“You were poisoned with ricin. Deliberately.”

Jim stares, his mind blank.

“Don’t look so incredulous,” Bones snarks fondly, rolling his eyes. “I’ve thought about poisoning you a few times myself, giving myself some permanent peace and quiet.”

“…Ricin?” he repeats nonsensically, as a complete loss for what else to say.

“Yeah, it acts as a toxin by inhibiting protein synthesis. It stops cells from assembling amino acids into proteins according to the messages it receives from messenger RNA in a process conducted by the cell's ribosome -which is the body’s protein-making machinery basically. Ribosomes are the most basic level of cell metabolism, essential to all living cells and thus to life itself. So if they go kaput…. You die.”

Jim blinks again.

“Sounds… bad,” he grunts, the medical jargon going completely over his head.

“It is rather,” Bones smiles at the ceiling. “A very unpleasant way to go.”

“I was poisoned with ricin?”

“You’re a bit slow on the uptake today aren’t you kid?” Bones mutters just loud enough to be heard. “But given you should be dead right now darling, I’ll give you a pass just this once.”

“How dead?”

“Very dead. But thankfully for you, Doctor Boyce and Doctor Gorze are very competent medical professionals and dragged you back from the edge by the skin of your teeth.”

“Phil?”

“Yes Phil,” Bones says dryly. “Captain Pike was screaming at him to save your fool ass immediately apparently.”

“Pike?”

“Three different nurses and two orderlies have independently informed me that his panicked yelling could be heard two floors away. Fortunately for my own ears, the operating theatre I was still in is soundproofed, so I didn’t know anything until several hours later.”

“He was screaming?”

“You were coughing up blood in his arms, completely jaundiced, going into extreme internal organ failure, and sobbing his and my names between bouts of throwing up. I think he can be forgiven for a little bit of shouting.”

Jim stares.

“But he doesn’t even like me,” he croaks eventually. “Thinks I’m a menace and pain in his ass.”

Bones stares back, one eyebrow rising to his hairline.

“He’s personally micromanaging your academy studies, drags you out to walk his dog with him regularly, makes you go to Sunday dinners at his house every week. He insists you call him by his first name when you’re off campus together. He bails you out of shit without even thinking about it, defends you to the hilt with other officers, personally handles all your disciplinaries so that no-one can make your life hell, and has been known to beg to the Admiralty on his literal knees to get you special measures. Jesus Jimmy, _he takes you out drinking once a month so can get_ safely _get wasted and then tucks you securely into his spare bed for the night._ What the _hell_ do you mean he doesn’t like you!? He’s practically adopted you, you _utter moron.”_

Jim gapes.

“…Oh,” he squeaks.

“Yeah too damn right _oh_ you unobservant infant. You are so damn lucky I’m in love with you and thus unusually forgiving we’re your concerned. Now sit tight while I go fetch him from Phil’s office. I promised I’d wake him as soon as you properly regained consciousness.”

Bones strides swiftly out the door while Jim’s mind is still reeling.

* * *

Jim wasn’t aware that he’d fallen asleep again, but when he stretches and his eyes reopen, the bright light of midday streaming through the glass windows has been replaced by the red hues of sunset.

“Jim?” he hears softly beside his head. “You with me now son?”

“I think so sir,” he murmurs, rubbing sleep grit out his eyes blearily.

“Please don’t ever do that to me again,” the Captain sighs. “I have fought in wars and been less afraid than I was when I found you passed out in that bathroom.”

“Sorry,” Jim mumbles, wishing he could vanish inside the biobed.

“Don’t apologise Jimmy, you’re the one who almost died.”

“Lied and said I was fine though.”

Pike cocks his head, and Jim finally summons the courage to turn his head and look the man in the eyes.

“Shouldn’t have lied sir. Force of habit. Sorry.”

Pike closes eyes and exhales deeply.

“Stop calling me sir son. I’m the one who never should have let you leave my office on Wednesday morning. You were already looking a little ashen.”

“But I’m the one who lied and said-”

“James.” Pike cuts him off. “I know damn well why you lied. I know you conditioned yourself into the habit for your own safety growing up. I 100% do not blame you for that. All it actually means is that I should be more proactive and watch out for you better.”

Jim shuffles, feeling very self-conscious and uncomfortable.

“As soon you’re discharged, you’re coming and staying with me for a while,” Pike continues after a pause, dropping his hand on Jim’s shoulder gently. “I am not trusting another damn roommate with you after this mess.”

“There’s an issue with my roommate sir?” Jim asks, confused.

“I told you drop the sir’s son,” Pike shakes his head. “I think you can call me Chris given the current situation. And yes, your roommate- your _ex-roommate_ is a pathetic murderous bastard with no morals, no sense of remorse, and no goodness in his heart. He willingly put _poison_ in your food.”

“But I ate in the Cadet mess hall that morning?” Jim stammers, shocked. “I know Gardy didn’t like me very much which is why we avoided each other but-”

“He put ricin salt on your bacon when you got to up to get more orange juice.” Chris growls over him, anger for Jim visible in every line of his body. “Security caught him red handed when they went over the mess hall vid footage.”

“But… why?” Jim swallows, still in shock.

“Ever heard of the Sons of Light? They're an extremely xenophobic "religious" organisation and his parents were members. Gardy got through security screening when he joined the academy because his uncle vouched for him and produced rehab papers. On re-examination they were forged.”

“It was an assassination attempt,” Jim shudders. “I’ve been living with assassin for six months and didn’t know it.”

“Which is exactly why you are moving in with Phil and I until I can get you your own single room in the graduate wing were the security is far better.”

“Stars above,” Jim gasps. “I _slept_ in the same room as him for half a year. Shared my food with him when he wasn’t snarling at me for being noisy, or messy or whatever.”

“Well he’s in the high security brigg with a broken nose now,” Chris snarls. “And I’d have hit him more than once if Archer hadn’t stopped me.”

Jim presses back into his pillows a little more and waits for the dizziness and horror to fade.

“I nearly died,” he stammers. “I ate some bacon and nearly died.”

“I should imagine that Phil will obsessively prep all your meals for a few weeks son,” Chris grunts, settling back in his chair, his hand still gripping Jim’s shoulder.

“I’m pretty okay with that,” Jim yawns weakly. “Phil Boyce is unlikely to deliberately poison me.”

“I’ll kick his ass if he tries,” Chris mutters with a small smile. “And he’ll kick mine if I try.”

“Ass kicking all round. Yay!”

“And I’m gonna kick your ass unless you reinstall the tracker in you Padd.”

“…I’ll think about it Chris.”

“You better boyo-mine.”

He yawns again, his jaw cracking with the effort, and sinks happily into the mattress.

“Now please go back to sleep kiddo,” Chris smiles at him, brushing his hair back from his eyes tenderly. “And then I’ll take you home when you wake up.”

Jim does, dreaming of the Pike-Boyce household. And of the warm, crackling fire he likes to fall asleep in front of.


End file.
